This invention relates to a device for collecting a fluid sample from a well, and in particular to a device for collecting a fluid sample from a well, and in particular to a device for collecting an oil sample at a wellhead.
In the oil industry, it is frequently necessary to obtain oil samples from producing wells, such samples may be required as often as weekly. The obtaining of oil samples has always been a messy and bothersome task. The inventors are aware of no commercially available product which will make the sampling job easier and less messy.
The problems involved in the collecting of fluid samples from wells are discussed at length in the preamble portion of Canadian Patent No. 1,139,127, which issued to G. J. Boyle et al on Jan. 11, 1983. The solution to such problems offered by the Boyle et al patent includes a pipe containing a body with a plurality of passages therein for mixing the components of the well fluid, and a sample tube extending into the pipe downstream of the mixing body for removing a fluid sample. It is readily apparent that the Boyle et al invention is designed to remove a more or less completely mixed well sample, i.e. a sample containing gas and liquid for analysis. Boyle et al offers no solution to the problem of separating gas and liquid at the wellhead and collecting the remaining liquid.
The object of the present invention is to provide a solution to the above problem in the form of a relatively simple device for collecting a sample at a wellhead, and for separating at least some gas from the sample.